Title: The Hostages Handbook
Author: eMu
A/N: Heydo, so this fic was written with the 60s/70s versions of the characters in mind, as they existed in the 60s/70s without any of the ret-cons accounted for. Therefore it's Paradise Island, not Themyscira, Aqualad goes after sea pirates and looters with Aquaman, not supervillains, etc. etc. I have a second chapter of this written and then I sort of...stopped...even though I had a lot more planned. So if you guys like this, drop a review and I might get excited enough to finish the fic. Thanks:D
After a few conversations amongst ourselves, the various members of the Teen Titans, IE sidekicks, have decided it would be for the best to record our experiences as hostages and bargaining chips, as it seems to be a common thread in our super-heroing adventures. We're thinking maybe we can learn from each others' mistakes.
Though we also do think it would be for the best if our mentors and nemeses didn't know about the book. To read the book is to later deny its existence.
Wonder Girl Kid Flash Robin Speedy Aqualad
6/23 Robin
Okay, my first tip is to avoid getting your captors angry at you, I mean if you can help it. I know that's going to be a stretch for Speedy in the future, since he's such a charming person and all, but seriously. We're most likely being taken by poorly adjusted weirdoes in costumes (as opposed to us well adjusted weirdoes in costumes); they're already ticking time bombs, best not to set them off.
So that was the first thing I did wrong that day, was when I called Freeze and Cold slush brains (I know, lame line, well I'm in the middle of finals and working three cases with Batman on top of it so excuse me if some of my lines aren't gold). Yeah, even though it was a line a five year old could have come up with, they got offended.
So then the next thing I remember is a big metal ice gun coming at my head, then my vision goes to stars, and the next thing I know I'm waking up with a massive head ache and a serious case of the shivers lying on the bottom of a cage made of icicles. Not kidding. The guys actually imprisoned me with icicles. It made me wonder if they'd ever actually taken a hostage before, I mean jeeze, icicles! They did however remember to confiscate my utility belt, and therefore all the nifty heat tools I'd packed when I'd realized I'd be going up against the combined forces of Mr. Freeze and Captain Cold.
This one started out as a Titans mission, in fact talking about this is what made us decide to start this book. The others thought I held my own being taken hostage by two baddies usually handled by Justice Leaguers, so we figured there would be something to gain from each others' experiences. Then there's the fact that me and Aqualad can't seem to go two weeks in a row without being kidnapped by somebody, and we can usually make it work for us.
So it started when a couple from some small town in the area of Central City appealed to us to help them with their runaway teenage son, Terry Morgan. I guess he'd been fighting with his Dad a lot before he'd taken off, and they thought talking with some kids his own age might help. We took the case, and while Wonder Girl and Kid Flash cheered up the Morgans and promised the safe return of their son, Speedy, Aqualad and I looked around his bedroom for some hints.
At first glance it looked like a pretty average bedroom, really. Well, I mean some of his book choices were eccentric, but if having a depressing taste in books is a sign of craziness then Batman is…you know maybe I shouldn't finish that thought.
Aqualad found our lead. The kid was using a flier for a bookmark in his Lovecraft volume, and the flier advertised a gathering for henchmen with a good tolerance for cold temperatures, no experience necessary.
"You're kidding. They advertise for these goons?" Speedy asked.
"I'm not all that surprised, actually." Aqualad shrugged. "I mean you would have to, wouldn't you? Can you think of anyone who would voluntarily approach Mr. Freeze and ask to work for him? I hear he's trigger happy."
"Not as bad as Joker or Two Face, but yeah, that's not someone I would be so eager to work for I'd seek him out, even if I was stupid enough to be a henchman." I agreed.
Speedy shrugged. "I still think it's dumb. Wait a minute, in Gotham they shoot their own henchmen? That's crazy dumb."
"Well yeah, it's Gotham." I noted. "Does the flier have a time and place on it?"
"Yep. Ooo, punch and pie. Wait, you think this is where the kid went?" Aqualad asked.
I took a look around his room at his collection of morbid books, badly written poetry, nihilistic journals and the various other crazy-person things me and Speedy had unearthed that the kid had clearly been hiding from his parents. "Yeah I think Terry Morgan's a touch suicidal. Either way it's our best lead."
"But Robin, this is a flier for Mr. Freeze and Captain Cold. That's two villains, guys, two actual villains. Not like the Mad Mod or Mr. Twister. Like real, we kill people, villains." Aqualad said hesitantly.
"What's your point Gill-head?" Speedy asked.
"My point is maybe we should give our mentors a heads up before we charge into a recruitment meeting for psychos with guns."
Aqualad probably had a point. No, actually he did have a very good point. It wouldn't have been a bad idea to let Batman know where I was going, or let Wonder Woman know where Wonder Girl was going, or Green Arrow know where Speedy was going, etc. etc. However we've all been getting a little annoyed at the Justice League as of late for going on about how 'cute' we are. I'm not dumb, I know I wear green pixie boots, but I'd like to have the illusion of professionalism and dignity. So anyway, Aqualad was the only one who wanted to go crying for help and we did what we usually do when he makes a suggestion, we ignored him.
We didn't tell the Morgans what our lead was since it would needlessly scare the bejeezus out of them, we just said we thought we knew where Terry was and we'd be back with their son very soon, collected Wonder Girl and Kid Flash and left.
The initial recruitment meeting had already happened, but we found the abandoned ice-rink it had been held at and searched around for clues. Or rather, me and Aqualad searched for clues while Kid Flash and Speedy flirted with Wonder Girl (and if either of you try to argue about that after you read this, you two so totally were flirting so don't even try to pretend you were helping).
We actually found a sign-in sheet (dumb, dumb, dumb! Super villains are idiots!) and tracked down a couple of thugs who hadn't made the cut, and were pretty pissy about it. Although Speedy pointed out that they'd been told by Captain Cold, who wears dorky imitation 3D glasses, and Mr. Freeze, who wears a fish bowl over his head, that they weren't 'hard' enough to be henchmen, so…yeah. They told us the names of a few guys who had made the job, confirmed that Terry Morgan was among them, and told us where Freeze and Cold were hiding out, which was a meat packing plant.
"Why a meat packing plant?" Aqualad asked. He looked a little green in the face.
"Who cares?" Which was Speedy's way of saying 'I don't know'.
"Freezers." Which was my way of saying 'duh'.
"Are there going to be dead things?" Aqualad asked.
"I would think so." Wonder Girl said.
"I think I'm gonna be sick." Aqualad said. And he was, and we had to stop for a few minutes for him to puke.
"Better he do it now instead of when we're taking on Freeze and Cold." Kid Flash pointed out while Speedy slapped Aqualad's back. By the way, that's what people tend to do when someone's choking, not throwing up. I don't know, maybe Speedy just wanted an excuse to hit Aqualad. It wouldn't surprise me.
Turns out Aqualad's a vegetarian. It comes from being able to talk to fish, which would be his primary source of food as he lives in the middle of the ocean, but since he does talk to them he doesn't like to eat them and lives off of, like seaweed and stuff. Doesn't bother Aquaman though. Aqualad says he's seen Aquaman order certain tasty denizens of the deep to swim back and forth across an underwater volcano until they're crispy.
"So…we should come up with a plan." I suggested. I figured we had time since Aqualad was still puking.
"Charge 'em?" Kid Flash suggested.
"Sounds good to me." Speedy agreed.
"I think we can come up with a better plan than charging in blind." I noted. The others disagreed, and that was our brilliant plan.
I would like to take this opportunity to point out that charging into an unknown situation with no plan knowing that the building you're charging contains two murderous psychos who are decidedly out of our league was most likely the most important factor in how I was taken hostage. It should be remembered and learned from in the future. Charging in blind is dumb. I told you all then, and I stand by it now. DUMB.
So anyway, Wonder Girl knocked down a wall of the meat packing plant, and we found ourselves facing a bunch of idiots in fur trimmed parkas with goggles and ice-guns. Most of them looked like high school kids, and two of them dropped their guns and ran at the sight of us. I didn't see Terry Morgan immediately.
We ran into the crumbled ruins of the main floor of the packing plant, tripping over debris and gun-fire as we went since, y'know, Wonder Girl is the only one of us who can fly. Speedy pushed Aqualad into a cow carcass and laughed while he had an anxiety attack. Then the idiot got hit with a pig leg by one of the would-be henchmen that Flasher disarmed and the scales of karma were balanced just that much more.
Kid Flash pulled Aqualad out of the cow carcass and brought him back into the fight where he was, albeit kinda useless since there were no fish of any kind present.
There were like twenty guys there, and none of them were all that committed to their employers. Makes me wonder if they were actually gonna get paid. Every time we disarmed one of them they just ran out the hole Wonder Girl had made (well, except for the guy with the pig-leg who'd hit Speedy, he was kinda psycho. I smell 'roid rage). This happened until there were only three of them left, which included Terry Morgan. WG wrapped them up in her lasso, and we appealed to Terry to go back home, his parents missed him, crime doesn't pay, blah blah blah. We almost had him, although I think it had less to do with our stirring speech and more to do with Wonder Girl's rack charming personality.
It was practically a mission accomplished until Freeze and Cold finally reacted to the no-doubt very loud noise made by WG demolishing a wall.
Mistake number two. I believe in stealthy entrances and taking the enemy by surprise. Here then is another cock-up we can hopefully learn from.
Flasher got himself into a sort of private battle with Captain Cold. The two of them were off doing their own thing at any rate, and I guess that was for the best since Kid Flash has a little more experience against Cold from working with the Flash. We were kept busy, meanwhile, by Freeze and about forty seasoned henchmen. The other kids we'd been fighting were rookies who had just been recruited the other night at the thing Terry Morgan had gotten the flier for, these guys were real henchmen which meant they fought slightly better and didn't run away as quickly.
So this is about where I came in on my tangent. We were losing, badly, and I didn't think my team, or the three remaining henchman hopefuls, had much hope of making it out of the meat packing plant. So I offered Freeze a deal. He takes me instead of the kids and the Titans will leave. This is why it worked: every guy who has ever gone up against Batman hates him with an undying passion and will do anything and everything to hurt him, and most will visibly drool at the prospect of getting to tie up, torture and kill his young, short-shorts wearing male companion. Yeah, I know. Keep in mind these are mostly diseased minds we're dealing with.
Captain Cold knew we were losing. He could tell that if the battle went on a little longer they would in fact have all of the Teen Titans and the three kids they'd hired as henchmen, so he didn't want to take my deal. But Freeze was distracted by hate for Batman and thus desire to harm me, so he turned his gun on Captain Cold until he accepted the offer.
And then I made my slush-brain comment or whatever and that's how I ended up in that stupid icicle cage.
By the way, the icicle cage was not in the meat packing plant but in a third cold-themed hide out. You know, we never even found out why Captain Cold and Mr. Freeze were working together. Usually you never see guys with the same MO working together, they just rub each other the wrong way. The League took this one over on us, we should ask them what those guys were plotting.
Anyway I woke up in the icicle cage sans utility belt facing a giant cannon-ish gun while Captain Cold and Mister Freeze cackled together about how soon the world would be theirs. There was a big control panel for the gun that they were sitting near, and lots of electronic equipment and a giant monitor that was probably used to communicate their ransoms with governments or something else lame that villains do. They were ignoring me, which gave me the chance to inspect the icicles.
By the way, I would like to add that it was frickin' freezing. My costume, as you have all pointed out many times over, does not cover as much of my body as say, Batman's does his, and I was exposed to very low temperatures. It sucked. Way worse than being taken by Firefly (well, except for the dignity part I mean damn, Firefly!). I would much rather be quickly burned alive than slowly frozen to death.
I figured I could bust out of the icicle cage with little to no trouble. Batman's taught me a buncha different martial arts techniques, so I've broken wooden boards and cement blocks with different limbs before. I figure I can take icicles. Problem is, Freeze and Cold were in the same room as me and they would definitely hear the shattering ice. I'd either have to risk it and hope I was faster than them, or hope they were somehow distracted before they got around to killing me.
Also decided it would be important to take out their ice-cannon while I was at it.
Don't get me wrong, I held out a faint glimmer of hope that the other Titans would have picked up a trail on the cold baddies and have figured out where I was and were possibly planning a rescue mission. However it was a very faint glimmer of hope.
Like I've said before, I get into these situations kind of a lot. Sometimes Batman doesn't rescue me right away, and sometimes he doesn't bother at all and makes me do it myself. I think the fact that I'm like a magnet for villains seeking hostages is annoying for him. Yeah, annoying for him
I decided I was not fast enough to break the icicles and get away, at least not without getting shot with an ice gun, so I looked around for a possible distraction. You can't just hope for those things to happen, you have to make them…most of the time.
Batman can throw his voice pretty convincingly. I've been working on it. Right now I can make my voice come from somewhere to my left and I can only do it with a fixed toothy smile. Since I can't actually change my voice and since it only comes from about four feet to my left, it mostly just confuses people. So I wasn't sure whether to try it or not…but if I ever do get that trick right I know it's going to work out really good for distracting people.
I mean, making them fall over laughing is okay too some of the time. It's good enough for Ding Dong Daddy…whatever.
I couldn't think of anything better…I was a tad distracted from losing the feeling in my toes and fingers. So I threw my voice, so that it sounded like it was basically right next to the icicle cage.
What did I say…
"Wow, I didn't think anyone could make a more phallic looking weapon than the Penguin but you cold guys sure do take the cake with that cannon thing."
I feel I should reiterate about the making your captors mad thing. It got their attention. Both of them turned around slowly, and I smiled stupidly because instead of distracting them I instead ensured their undivided attention. Good move, really.
"And what shape would you make your giant gun?" Captain Cold demanded.
"I don't know, I'd probably have to disguise it as an egg or something, wouldn't I?" I asked, still throwing my voice so that it was coming to the left of the cage.
"Will you stop doing that?" Mr. Freeze snapped. "That sort of thing may work on the regular riff raff in Gotham, but you won't fool us."
"Actually it doesn't work so well on bad guys yet. Batman's pretty good at it though."
"Yeah, I've heard him. You know, if he ever gave up this vigilantism thing he could have a real career in show business." Mr. Freeze agreed. "He had me dead convinced he was my cryogenically frozen wife talking to me through all the equipment once. But when I figured out it was a ruse it just made me want to kill him even more than I already did."
And I found myself looking down the barrel of an ice gun again. He'd sounded so damn pleasant at the start of his anecdote too. I hate super villains.
"Freeze, no!" Captain Cold said, smacking the gun away from me. Freeze instinctually pulled the trigger and a patch of floor just next to my foot sprouted an ice block. "We need to keep him alive until we've ransomed the city in case we need to use him as leverage against the capes. When I have my money you can kill him."
"Oh what's the difference if he's preserved in ice or not?" Freeze asked.
"I think there's a big difference." I put in. They both told me to shut up, and then they started squabbling about who was in charge of their 'gig'. I swear to God, I didn't even have to pit them against each other. They just started arguing. I don't think they like each other very much. In fact, Freeze accused Cold of ripping off his gimmick.
Their arguing wasn't heated enough to distract them from the sound of smashing icicles so I just waited for them to stop. It was kinda boring actually.
Well you know how Aqualad said Freeze was trigger happy? Yeah, he's right. It got a lot less boring when Freeze pulled his piece on Cold. When they started shooting at each other (and we all know most villains have lousy aim), that's when I broke out of the cage. The closest they ever came to hitting me was while they were aiming at each other.
I had to do some acrobatic flips and whatnot, because once they noticed I was out of the cage they started aiming for me instead of each other, and I was safest as a moving target. I used a broken icicle as a projectile, jammed the barrel of Captain Cold's gun and it exploded in his hand. That's about the point when the other Titans exploded in through the South wall.
"Oh man, he like rescued himself! Wonder Girl, we could have totally stayed at the Morgans' house for cookies!" Speedy yelled.
"Thanks for the concern!" I snapped.
I admit it, I was distracted by the sudden entrance from my would-be rescuers. That should be a rule too, rescuers can appear at any moment and we shouldn't let them startle us into making a stupid mistake. Like becoming a stationary target as opposed to a moving one.
Mr. Freeze zapped me with his gun and encased me from the waist down. Aqualad charged him and whacked the gun out of his hand with a board with a nail in it (I'm guessing he got the board during WG's snappy entrance), but since he kinda jumped in the path of Freeze's blast doing so he took a shot to the arm and ended up with a block of ice over his left arm, from fingertips to his elbow.
I should mention that Freeze's guns don't cover you with regular ice. It's super hard-slow-melting stuff that Batman takes off victims with chemical baths. It royally sucks, I've been blasted with it on more than one occasion.
Oh yeah, and even without his gun Mr. Freeze is still far from harmless. His suit gives him enhanced strength and reflexes. Plus Captain Cold was still around even though he didn't have his gun. He'd gone over to the ice-cannon. Luckily Speedy noticed and shot him with a net-arrow that stuck him to the ground.
Wonder Girl had a punching contest with Mr. Freeze and did enough damage to his suit that he gave in.
Thing is we forgot about the henchmen. Captain Cold had summoned them just before his attempt to shoot us all with the ice-cannon.
"Robin and Aqualad are down, we're outnumbered and Speedy used up most of his useful arrows on the way here. I think we should retreat team!" Kid Flash yelled.
"Hey man, our leader decides that, and he hasn't said to run away yet!" Speedy pointed out. He did seem to be in somewhat of an arrow dearth, but he took off his quiver and started whacking henchmen with it, so he was still being somewhat useful.
I was stuck to the spot half encased in ice, shivering more violently than I ever have before in my life, and unable to talk because my teeth were chattering so hard I thought they would break.
"Robin, do you think we should go?" Kid Flash asked. "Look, he nodded!"
"No he didn't, he's just shivering!" Speedy yelled.
"I think my hand's gonna fall off!" Aqualad whined.
"Ice is water, can't you like control it or something? I thought water was your thing!" Speedy yelled as a ring of henchman closed in around him. Wonder Girl lifted him out from the center of the ring and dropped him safely with me and Aqualad. Kid Flash was circling us fast enough to kick up winds that kept the bad guys away from us.
"I can't control water, I just talk to fish!" Aqualad answered.
"Dude, that is so frickin' lame. All you can do is talk to fish? You're serious!" Speedy looked flabbergasted. "And they seriously let you onto the team before me?!"
"Guys, are we retreating or what?" Kid Flash yelled.
"Yes, we're retreating because I like our leader alive. C'mon guys!" Wonder Girl decided. She pulled me and my icy coating up into the air like it was nothing. Kid Flash grabbed Aqualad and ran him two neighborhoods over in the time it took Wonder Girl to get to the hole where the wall had been, while Speedy covered our exit with a smoke-arrow.
As soon as we were clear of the cold guys Flasher tried to vibrate away our ice, but it didn't work.
"Ch-ch-ch-che-"
"He's trying to say something!" Speedy exclaimed. WG and Flasher shushed him while Aqualad whimpered and clutched his ice-covered arm.
"ch-ch-mm-ckl b-b-b-b-"
"Come on Robin, what do we need to do?" Wonder Girl asked.
"B-b-b-tt-m-m-m-a-nn-" I stuttered uselessly.
"Batman can fix this stuff? Well I suppose he would, but how are we supposed to find him?" Kid Flash asked.
"S-s-s-s-s-"
"You sound like a snake. Is there a Snake House you want us to find or something?" Wonder Girl asked.
"S-s-gg-n-ll-"
"I think he means the bat signal." Speedy said.
"The what?" The others asked.
"The Bat Signal. The police have this light that they turn on to get Batman's attention. We've got an Arrow signal." He explained.
"But Gotham's so far away. There's got to be something we can do for them more quick-" Before Wonder Girl could finish that though Kid Flash had carried Aqualad to the Gotham police headquarters. He was a little slower carrying me, but then the ice block on my legs was probably really heavy.
He ditched Speedy and Wonder Girl in Central City, turned on the Signal, and Batman showed up in like ten minutes.
I had passed out by then. I woke up in the Cave, or more accurately, in a tank in the cave in yellow liquid that smelled like an old lady's medicine cabinet. My legs were numb and stiff for a few days, and I got a vacation from patrol work out of it. Aqualad stayed with us until he got the feeling back in his left arm.
It was kinda cool actually. Like a vacation, except I got chewed out by Batman for being sloppy. But I got to know Aqualad a lot better, and he told us about this stuff called tofu. I thought it was gross at first, but now I can't stop eating it. Magical stuff, tofu.
We told our mentors about Mr. Freeze and Captain Cold's collaboration, and how they have a giant ice cannon that they plan on ransoming the free world with. They all said they'd handle it in the league, and since no nations of the world experienced a mini-ice age I'm assuming they did.
I guess that's it.